But as morbid as the spectacle of VW's imploding game of deception is, there's an equally fascinating story out there: that of the small West Virginia lab that first blew the lid off of Volkswagen's emissions deception—all the way back in May of last year.

The Detroit News has a fantastic in-depth look at the small-time experiment that led to the discovery of VW's emissions cheating game. Commissioned by the small non-governmental International Council for Clean Transportation, the study sought to figure out whether European diesel vehicles, which are held to different environmental standards than U.S. market diesels, emit too much nitrogen oxide pollution.

When technicians at the West Virginia University lab commissioned by the ICCT got their first results, they were convinced it was an error, as The Detroit News reports:

The group expected the cars they tested would perform better than those in Europe, because U.S. regulations are tougher. They were surprised the two Volkswagens had significantly higher-than-expected emissions, while the BMW performed well. They were so certain they had done something wrong that they tested the cars two more times with similar results.

Once the lab researchers discovered the findings were legitimate, they published findings in May 2014. The report went largely unnoticed, but it caught the eye of the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resource Board, each of which opened investigations.

The story takes a number of twists and turns from there. Initially, the government agencies had no reason to suspect foul play from Volkswagen, which issued two separate recalls involving software updates that promised to fix the issue. As recently as early August, the government agencies believed VW was acting in good faith, and that this discrepancy was a result of inadvertent mechanical issues rather than a purposeful scam.